Tag: novels

WorldCon Glasgow Schedule and Signings

The much-anticipated fandom event known as WorldCon Glasgow is starting this week, and I’m delighted to be attending it. I haven’t been to Europe since pre-COVID times, and Glasgow Worldcon will be my first European convention ever as a published novelist. So I’m very much looking forward to meeting readers, doing panels, and seeing people I haven’t seen for an awfully long time.

If you’re attending, here’s where you’ll be able to find me:

(Pre-convention): August 7, Signing at Forbidden Planet Glasgow from 5pm. (If you can’t attend in-person, email the store and place an order, and I’ll happily sign/personalise the book for you.)

August 8, Panel, How Real Aliens Would Behave on Earth, 8:30pm (GM1+), Hall 1

August 9, Autographing/Signing, 11:30am, Hall 4

That’s the official schedule. But I’ll also attending several social events through-out the weekend. They include:

Pop-up Social Glasgow:

August 8, August 9, August 10. 14:00-16:00, Hall 4 (open seating area)

Grim Socials:

Friday, August 9th, Hall 4 Bar, 3:30pm onwards

Sunday August 11th, Crowne Plaza Fan Bar, Argyll Foyer, 3pm onwards

Otherwise, I expect to be lurking in the bar or in the coffeehouses throughout the weekend. If you see me, feel free to say hi. And if you want a book signed, it doesn’t have to be at one of the signings, I’m happy to do it anywhere, anytime (as long as I’m not eating!).

I’ll also be bringing a ton of bookmarks and other swag with me to giveaway. If you see me, stop me and get one!

As for my own personal writing, I don’t have much else to say . . . yet. I’ve breached 100k on the new project I’ve been calling the Rage book, and it’s extremely promising. I’m also working on something else on the side, something I’ll be self publishing. I expect to get that into your hands very soon. Possibly as early as this year, or Q1 2025 at the very latest.

Watch this space…

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Worldcon Glasgow appearance and few updates

Like many people in publishing, early August will see me attending WorldCon in Glasgow, Scotland. It’ll be my first event in Europe ever with books out, so I’m really looking forward to that. I’ve had a lot of readers tell me how stoked they are to meet me and buy me an alcoholic beverage, so let me make it clear that I am very partial to people who buy me alcohol.

I’ll be on some panels, and I expect to have a signing and possibly a kaffeeklatsch at some point. If anyone sees me, feel free to stop and say hello. I’m also happy to sign anything (in and or outside of an official signing) that’s not a contract.

What else has been happening? Not so much. I’m still waiting for my editor to come back to me with edits for Wolfskin. But there ain’t no rest for the wicked, so I’ve been plugging away at a new book. I won’t reveal much about it, but I will say that I’m calling it the Rage book, and that I’ve just hit the 100k mark. I’m really enjoying how the project is shaping up, and I’ll be very excited for it to go on submission (hopefully by next year).

I’ll also say that my agent read the first act (roughly 40,000 words) and he had exceptionally good things to say about it. And say one thing for John Jarrold, no one has ever excused him of not shooting straight. So if it says it’s good, he does really mean it.

Otherwise, I’ve been reading the new Joe Abercrombie book: the Devils. Our mutual publisher sent me the book so I might blurb it. Here’s what I had to say:

Visceral and vivid, The Devils by Joe Abercrombie is exceptionally good. Every page is laced with an edge, an energy, packed with sharp wit and banter. If competing works of fantasy literature are a forest, Abercrombie is a damn flamethrower.

Also, you guys are gonna *love* Vigga-Wolf.

Till next time…

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Male friendships and brotherhood in SFF

The good people over at Shepherd’s – a fantastic book blog dedicated to building up authors and supplying readers with good material to read – got in touch and asked me to do a little book post for them. More specifically, a post listing five of my favourite books, all connected by a linking topic or theme.

Anyone who knows me and my books knows that themes of brotherhood and platonic relationships between male characters are things I am passionate about. They’re the driving force of my stories. The core around which everything else is built. I couldn’t *not* write about it.

So I did.

I’ve got five books listed here that have spoken to me one way or another about this very subject of male friendships, and why they’re so damn important to me. It was a fun post to make, and I hope you get to discover a new read that way!

You can check out the blog post over here.

Enjoy!

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The Wolves are on the horizon!

After nearly three years, Wolfskin, Book 3 in the Common Saga, has been delivered to my editor, Gillian Redfearn, at Gollancz!

It feels like an end of an era, in a way. I discovered the brooding, dark hero of Vakov Fukasawa back in December 2016, when I was just 22 years old. I’m nearly 29 now, and I’ve walked with him for three books as we’ve gone on this wild journey together. Now, I’ve told the (final?) chapter in his story, and I’m immensely proud of it.

Has the road been easy? No. It’s been rough. I was going through a lot during the drafting of Book 3. A lot. There were days when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue writing. But I’m in a much better place now.

The book needed to go in a different direction from what I originally envisioned, and I’m very glad that I’ve taken the extra time to get it nailed down the way I want it. I’m *extremely* happy with how Vakov’s story has shaped up, and I do genuinely feel that this is not only the best book in the series, and my favourite, but that it will have the best reception of the trilogy. Those three things can sometimes fall into different sections of a Venn diagram, but in this case, it’s a circle.

But time will tell.

So, I hear you ask: when do I get to read it????

I don’t get to make that decision. It’s currently on my editor’s desk, and I can do nothing until she edits it and sends it back to me. I will have to go through those structural edits, discuss things with my editor, make my own changes, and then send it back to her. Then she’ll edit the book again, this time for line-edits. And then I’ll go through it again. And then there’s copyedits, proofs, etc.

So don’t expect to get your hands on it for a little while. No one is more eager for this book to come out than I am. But it has to come out at the right time, when it is ready, and not before.

But delivery is the biggest and most important step, and that’s been taken. I’ll be sure to announce it when a release date slides into view.

Till then, I’ll be going on a month-long holiday (I’ve earned it!)

I’ve also given a lot of thought to what I’m going to write next. And I know exactly what my next project is will. I aim to get that written sooner rather than later.

Finally, thank you so much for your trust and patience, dear readers. I greatly appreciate it, and I’m determined to end this trilogy with a bang.

Before I go, I’ll leave ya with the opening line of Wolfskin:

“Most people have to die before they get sent to hell. I had not been given the privilege.”

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Blindspace typos corrected

This note is long overdue, but I wanted to say that it’s come to my attention that there are some typos in the print editions of Blindspace (I was as surprised to find them as the readers were), and that my publishers have corrected the errors.

This means that the ebook versions of the book have already been fixed. For physical copies, the corrections will come into effect for all future printings of the books. The errors, and the source of these errors, have been weeded out.

Thank you for your patience with this.

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The music that built my books, Part 1

Lots of writers work to music. The chances are, your favourite epic fantasy or SF or crime thriller was written to the tunes of a soundtrack, especially if those moments are epic or emotional in nature.

While I can’t do lyrics while writing, since it distracts me, plugging into a few tunes really does help me get into the zone and into the mood. Some of the best scenes from Stormblood and Blindspace were written while listening to Sigur Ros or Explosions in the Sky. The titular chapter “Stormblood” was written to the melancholy and mournful strings of “Never Forget” from the Halo 3 soundtrack. If you’ve read the chapter, you’ll know why.

And, of course, many chapters were written to “Samskeyti” by Sigur Ros and “Ashes in the Snow” by Mono. Even if you’re not a post-rock aficionado, they’re well worth listening to.

In the future, I’d like to do a few more posts, fleshing out the songs and soundtracks that helped with the creation of certain characters, and how they helped me find the emotional foundation for those sections of the books.

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Cover reveal: Wolfskin

Here it is, my people, the cover for WOLFSKIN – Book 3 of the Common Saga.  

There is treason! Duels! Armour! Planetary sieges! Action! Betrayal! Twists! Turns! Character tension! Trauma! Gin! Wolves! Brotherhood! Found families! Nomad warriors! Alien empires! Gothic cathedral spaceships!

And a lot of savage emotional moments that will (hopefully) rip your heart out through your throat.

It’s shaping up to be the most epic, ferocious, and intense entry yet. The direction it takes will be different from the last two entries, familiar and yet surprising in all the best ways. While it’s also the darkest and most action-packed book in the series, it’s also the most heroic, with the most “stand up and cheer” moments than the last two books combined. There’s also a strong element of political character tension, a la Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon. I’m afraid to say more than that, so I don’t spoil the surprise.

And this cover is probably my favourite of the bunch. The folks at Blacksheep Studios have outdone themselves in every conceivable way, and they deserve all the praise here. (Support human artists, not AI.)

I’ve had a little of a rough time in writing this book, due to both real life issues and narrative congestion. But I’ve been doing very well recently, and I’m burning through my second draft like an armoured Reaper through a Battalion of cultists. My publisher hasn’t nailed down a release date yet (that’s their fault, not mine), so I don’t have a word on when it’ll be in your hands. Until then, I’m hard at work, orchestrating the next chapter in Vakov Fukasawa’s life as he battles through this savage little world that I discovered way back in 2016.

Till then, feast your eyes on this divine cover art and see that it is good.

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Stormblood hardback edition: Phantasia Press

The excellent folk over at Phantasia Press – a recently revived small press publisher of special deluxe hardback editions – have acquired the rights for Stormblood!

This means that there’s going to be two hardback editions of Stormblood – one lettered, one numbered. There’ll be 350 numbered editions. The books will include a slipcase, interior artwork, a dust jacket, a cover. And, of course, all copies of the books will be signed (or narcissistically defaced, if you prefer), by yours truly.

I don’t know any dates or have any idea of when any of this is going to happen, or what it’s going to cost. But I know a lot of people are avid collectors of special hardbacks, and with the Goldsboro hardback edition of Stormblood selling out within a week, I imagine there will be one or two people who will be very eager to check out what Phantasia Press does with Stormblood.

And if sales are good, there’s no reason why they cannot give the whole trilogy the deluxe edition treatment.

My agent, John Jarrold, has the full announcement here.

Alex Berman at Phantasia Press has acquired limited edition hardback rights in STORMBLOOD, the brilliant SF debut by Jeremy Szal. The deal was concluded with Alice Cottrell, Rights Manager at Orion/Gollancz. Gollancz published STORMBLOOD in 2020, and the sequel, BLINDSPACE, in 2021. The third book in the sequence, WOLFSKIN, is being written.

If you want to make sure you hear about the release dates/pre-orders as soon as possible, you’d do well to subscribe to my Book Club, since I’ll be posting the news and links there first.

The link to sign up is here.

Till next time . . .

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